Most test preparation teaches students to game a test they don't understand. I teach the underlying material — the grammar, the mathematics, the reading — until the test becomes easy because the student is genuinely better at the subject. Tricks decay under pressure. Mastery doesn't. It is slower at the start and faster everywhere else, and it produces students who arrive at college prepared rather than merely admitted.
Evidence over intuition.
Every engagement begins with diagnosis: identifying precisely where a student loses points and why. From there, preparation follows the methods the learning-science literature actually supports — retrieval practice, spaced repetition, and self-explanation — rather than the passive review most students default to. Students learn not just the material but how to attribute their own errors, which is the skill that makes improvement permanent.
Structure that produces follow-through.
Talent is common; execution is rare. My students work within a deliberate structure: assigned independent work verified between sessions, full-length proctored practice tests on a fixed schedule, and a written report to parents every week — what we covered, where the student stands, and what happens next. Families are never left wondering.
One advisor, the whole picture.
Test preparation and admissions strategy are treated by most families as separate purchases from separate people. They are one problem. Scores shape the college list; the list shapes the essays; the essays express a narrative built across a student's entire high school career. I handle all of it, which means nothing is developed in isolation and nothing falls between chairs.
A deliberately small practice.
I take a limited number of students each cycle so that every family works directly with me — there are no associates, no junior tutors, no handoffs. Enrolled families also receive access to my private library of video solutions, in which I work every question of recent SATs on camera, and to me, directly, when questions arise between sessions.
Family names and student results are held in confidence.